April 24, 2007

When Google (GOOG) announced its $3.1 billion proposed acquisition of DoubleClick on April 13, recovering monopolists Microsoft (MSFT) and AT&T (T) were the most vociferous complainants urging regulators to scrutinize the deal.

Alluding to the irony, I asked Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith last week if he’d be hiring David Boies, of Boies Schiller & Flexner, to counsel his company on the antitrust issues. It was Boies, of course, who had sliced and very nearly diced Microsoft seven years ago as lead trial attorney for the government in its monopolization case against Microsoft.

“Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me,” Smith said, but he sounded intrigued, and asked me to have Boies call him if he seemed interested after I spoke to him.

Parloff followed up with Boies and discovered that AT&T had already hired the firm as their DoubleClick complainers. My, how the worm turns.